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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26397787">i broke apart my insides</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter'>susiecarter</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The November Man (2014)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5 Times, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Decisions, Bitterness, Complicated Relationships, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Pining, Rescue, Resentment, Sexual Tension, Trust Issues, Truth Serum, emotional tension</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:40:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,868</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26397787</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times David hid his feelings about Devereaux, plus the time he couldn't.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Peter Devereaux/David Mason</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>pine4pine 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i broke apart my insides</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/gifts">Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy Pine4Pine, Sandrine! :D ♥</p><p>Title from "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, because it felt so apropos I couldn't stop myself.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>one.</strong>
</p><p>It wasn't a problem while they were fucking.</p><p>While they were fucking, it was the last thing on David's mind. He was still riding the high of having pulled it off, the dizzy smug delight of actually <em>getting</em> to Devereaux. He'd been thinking about it for so long—practically since the day he'd been assigned to Devereaux. The moment they'd met, Devereaux had looked him over with those cool sharp eyes; and then he'd looked away, and David had itched immediately with the awareness of it, Devereaux's attention handed to him and as easily taken away again, and had known right then he'd do just about anything to get it back.</p><p>He hadn't exactly planned on doing <em>this</em>, admittedly. He'd thought about it a lot. Too much, probably, but come on: he spent eighteen hours a day with Devereaux, his entire goddamn life revolved around Devereaux. He was only supposed to be worrying about what Devereaux thought of him in a professional sense, what Devereaux was going to put in his evaluations of David while David was in training.</p><p>But he wanted Devereaux's eyes on him. He wanted Devereaux to look at him. He wanted Devereaux to <em>want</em> to look at him, to look at him more than he looked at anybody else.</p><p>He'd pissed Devereaux off today. He shouldn't have been happy about it, except that was one of the real surefire ways to get Devereaux's attention, and by now David was so twisted up inside over Devereaux that the line between good attention and bad attention was pretty fucking thin. He'd disobeyed orders—moved, because he knew he could get a better shot, and fine, somebody had seen him, come for him, but Devereaux had shot him before he could shoot David. It had been fine.</p><p>But Devereaux hadn't thought so. Devereaux hadn't shouted at him; Devereaux almost never shouted. He'd just given David a hard steady stare, bitten out sharp words one at a time. David was familiar with Devereaux's ideas about David's role in their operations: that David should shut up and do what Devereaux told him, and maybe sooner or later he'd learn something from it. He'd gritted his teeth and waited it out, nodding along, and then—</p><p>And then Devereaux had lost it. He'd burst up, crossed the room, wound his fists into David's shirt and shoved David into a wall. David had let him, too startled not to. They'd fought, hard, close-quarter. David had, inevitably, gotten hard. Impossible not to, with Devereaux's hands on him, Devereaux's set jaw and furious eyes—like there had been nothing else in the world for him right then except David.</p><p>When Devereaux had noticed, it had given him a second's pause. Half a second's, maybe. They'd been on the floor by then, David pinned, trying to twist out from under Devereaux and failing. Devereaux had gone still, had stared down at David in silence, unreadable, and David hadn't even been able to begin to guess what he was thinking.</p><p>And then Devereaux had fucked him.</p><p>And while they were fucking, David wasn't thinking about anything except how ridiculously goddamn good it felt to have gotten what he wanted—to know Devereaux wanted it, too.</p><p>Devereaux was just so <em>serious</em>, so intense; he never let himself get distracted while they were on a mission, never stopped thinking. And now the thing he wasn't letting himself get distracted from, the thing every inch of him was focused on, was David, and David thought dimly that he was never going to be able to get enough of it.</p><p>He didn't know then how true it would be.</p><p>When it was over, though—Devereaux stood.</p><p>David frowned a little, feeling warm and tired and vaguely curious, and reached for him. "Hey," he said.</p><p>Devereaux glanced at him. Quick, cool. Dismissive.</p><p>David's gut went cold.</p><p>"We're done here," Devereaux said evenly. "I have reports to file. Needless to say, my evaluation of your conduct on-mission today will not be positive."</p><p>For a split second, David wanted to be sick. He didn't—he didn't even understand why. He'd wanted Devereaux to fuck him, and Devereaux had done it. Even if Devereaux was having a sudden attack of conscience over sticking his dick in his trainee, he'd given in to the temptation once; there was no reason to think David wouldn't be able to get him to do it again, sooner or later.</p><p>There was no reason to be upset. There was no reason to be hurt.</p><p>Devereaux wasn't. And David refused, reflexive and bone-deep, to give Devereaux the advantage: to be hurt himself by anything that so clearly hadn't left a mark of any kind on Devereaux.</p><p>He turned the motion of his hand toward Devereaux into a long, luxurious stretch. He had good arms, good shoulders, and he knew it. Wouldn't do any harm to give Devereaux a nice long look—remind him, maybe, how ten minutes ago he'd been gripping those upper arms hard enough to bruise, holding David down and fucking him.</p><p>"Yeah, yeah," David said aloud, level. "Whatever. I'm good and you know it."</p><p>"You're going to get yourself killed," Devereaux said, "if you can't learn to take a direct order."</p><p>"Sir, yes, sir," David murmured.</p><p>The line of Devereaux's mouth was flat. "You aren't as subtle as you think you are, David," he said, almost gently, and the distant pity in it made David want to hit him. "You've been gagging for it."</p><p>David went hot, and then cold, and then hot again. He made sure the expression on his face didn't change.</p><p>"Have I."</p><p>"I assume that now that you've gotten this nonsense out of your system," Devereaux added, "you'll show a little more dedication to your work."</p><p>Jesus Christ. David lay there, and stayed as deliberately, conspicuously relaxed as he knew how. He flicked a look up at Devereaux from behind his eyelashes. "I'll consider it."</p><p>Devereaux was silent for a moment.</p><p>"You're better than this," he said at last, quiet. "You're better than you're choosing to be. I know it, and so do you."</p><p>"Yeah," David said. "Sure."</p><p>Then he rolled over and closed his eyes, so when Devereaux left the room, he wouldn't have to know it.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(<i>You feel the need for a relationship? Get a dog.</i></p><p>Devereaux wouldn't say that to him until a year later. But if he'd thought about it then, he might have understood.</p><p>Relationships were dangerous. To civilians; to agents, too. And Devereaux—</p><p>Devereaux, if he suspected he might be in danger of finding himself in one, if he suspected he might be in danger of <em>wanting</em> to find himself in one, would do what it took to prevent it. And if he thought he couldn't trust his own judgment, then he'd make sure the call wasn't his to make.</p><p>So if, hypothetically, he knew someone wanted him—if he discerned in himself the steadily increasing temptation to let them have him—well. He was, in fact, the sort of person who might fuck them and then make them feel like shit about it. So they wouldn't try again; so if he ended up trying, they'd tell him to go fuck himself.</p><p>If David had realized it then, he'd have laughed. He'd have laughed, and explained to Devereaux the mistake he'd made: that he'd wildly underestimated David's gluttony for punishment, especially when that punishment came from Devereaux.</p><p>As it was, though, David wouldn't figure that particular piece of the puzzle out for a long, long time.)</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>two.</strong>
</p><p>"—with Peter Devereaux?"</p><p>David tensed.</p><p>He managed to confine the reaction to the muscles of his back, his throat; his shoulders didn't move, and he kept his jaw relaxed. He let himself look up, because the words had been loud enough to hear clearly. It would have been stranger not to.</p><p>And—yeah, sure enough, one of the analysts was coming toward him. New girl, bright-eyed, with that half-uncertain half-daring look that said she'd been talking about him, and she knew that he knew it.</p><p>Stood to reason. Not that many people around HQ these days who'd worked with Devereaux and weren't pushing fifty and installed in an office of their own.</p><p>David wasn't even supposed to be here. He'd been stuck waiting fucking hours for a debrief with Hanley, after the last op he'd been on had gone to shit. He'd gotten the shot, nailed the target, but it hadn't come easy, and evac after had been a mess.</p><p>But Hanley still wasn't done with the last guy, and here he was.</p><p>"Sorry," the analyst said, with a little duck of her head, tucking her hair behind her ear. She probably used that move coming up to a lot of guys, making herself look shy, sheepish, harmless.</p><p>Maybe, David thought, they should test her out on a little low-grade fieldwork.</p><p>"Sorry, I just, um—"</p><p>He pinned on a smile, polite but with a little warmth behind it: friendly, we're-on-the-same-team. She smiled back and eased up on the show of awkwardness just a touch, now that he'd shown willing to go for it.</p><p>"I just had to ask," she said. "Ostrowski says you were trained by Peter Devereaux?"</p><p>"Yeah," David said, mild, and leaned back in his chair, slung an arm over the back. "Yeah, that's right. You know him?"</p><p>"Oh, no," the analyst said, "no, I'm new. He retired, what, two—three—"</p><p>"Three," David said.</p><p>"Right, yeah. Three years ago now, so. I've just heard so much about him, that's all."</p><p>And sure, of course she had. Some of the analysts were like that. Didn't get to do fieldwork themselves, but loved to trade stories about it, the toughest ops or the weirdest, the ones some agent had pulled off by the skin of their teeth. Which meant half the best stories in the pool, minimum, were about Devereaux.</p><p>"I've never met anybody who worked with him directly, though."</p><p>"Hanley did," David said evenly.</p><p>The analyst made a face, and laughed. "Oh, sure, but—well, that was a pretty long time ago. Seriously, what was he like?"</p><p>David bit down hard, hard, on the inside of his cheek, and carefully swallowed a hundred answers he couldn't give; they burned, bitter, on the way down.</p><p>"I mean, my training didn't last that long," he said, mouth quirking, offering her an apologetic shrug. "I didn't really know him that well. He was good, obviously." He leaned forward a little, lowered his voice. "Kind of a control freak, sometimes. But he knew what he was doing." David smiled wider. "He always knew exactly what he was doing."</p><p>"You guys got along?"</p><p>"Sure," David said, easy. "Best friends, me and Devereaux. But if he lives too long, I'm probably the guy Hanley's going to send to tie up the loose end."</p><p>The analyst laughed.</p><p>David didn't.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(It was true. Or at least David hoped it was. He wanted it to be him.</p><p>Nobody else had the right.)</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>three.</strong>
</p><p>The van crashed.</p><p>David heard the shots, counted them off in his head as he climbed, quick and quiet, out the back. More than enough to account for the rest of the team: a double-tap, a hit, missed shots that clanged off the van's interior. Shit, they'd seen him move—that was why they'd kept firing, and they were missing but only because they were barely half a beat behind him. They knew he was there. They'd be waiting for him to round the van.</p><p>After the cacophony of the crash, the shattering windows, the shouts and the shooting, it was abruptly quiet. David could hear his own pulse rushing in his ears, the minute scrape of his own shoes against the pavement under his feet. The minute scrape of someone else's shoes, in the spaces between his own steps.</p><p>He had his gun in his hands, raised, poised. He was ready. He'd take the shot, once he had it. That was what made him such a good sniper. He never hesitated, once he had the shot. The target didn't matter. He didn't care. When he had the shot, he took it, and he never felt a thing. Doing it like this, point-blank—that was just going to make it easier. No need to account for the wind, he thought, distant, wry.</p><p>And then he took one more step to the left. He was looking over the hood of the van, and so was the shooter.</p><p>It was Devereaux.</p><p>David's throat closed. He couldn't breathe. His gun wavered a fraction of an inch. He felt it happen, and he couldn't stop it.</p><p>Jesus. He had to fire. He <em>had</em> to fire. He would, he told himself. He would, if Devereaux did.</p><p>It was a stupid thing to think. As if he'd be able to see Devereaux's hand tightening, as if he'd be able to beat Devereaux to the punch once Devereaux had already pulled the trigger. Every second he spent not shooting Devereaux first was a second he was practically begging Devereaux to kill him.</p><p>He had to fire.</p><p>He didn't.</p><p>He and Devereaux stared at each other. It was dimly gratifying, to some idiot part of David that didn't know any better, that Devereaux looked just as blindsided as David felt.</p><p>Devereaux lowered his gun first. David copied him, instinctive, completely fucking stupid. Still following Devereaux's goddamn lead, after five goddamn years.</p><p>And then Devereaux turned away, frustrated, resigned—turned his back on David, and left.</p><p>David watched him go, backing away. It took too long for him to turn around, and he knew it.</p><p>But Devereaux wasn't looking; Devereaux didn't see.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(He hadn't given himself away. He couldn't have. Not then.</p><p>Devereaux hadn't shot him, either.</p><p>So it didn't mean anything. It couldn't.</p><p>God. The car—he'd been focused, that cool clear headspace he fell into every time he had a rifle in his hands, like nothing in the world existed except the target. He should have looked at the fucking driver.)</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>four.</strong>
</p><p>Sarah wanted him.</p><p>She'd wanted him for a while. He wasn't stupid, and she'd been pretty obvious about it. She was—</p><p>She was gagging for it.</p><p>She wanted him.</p><p>He looked at Devereaux's evaluations, clean bloodless typed-up words spelling out every single thing Devereaux thought was wrong with him. He looked at Devereaux's signature on them. Something filled up his throat, squeezed his heart to a cramp in his chest.</p><p>He gave a shit what Devereaux thought of him. Of course he fucking did. He couldn't help it. He was never going to be able to stop.</p><p>But he didn't have to act like it.</p><p>He took the cat back across the hall. Sarah opened the door for him, and smiled at him.</p><p>Two minutes, and it was more than he'd ever gotten out of Devereaux.</p><p>So when she pressed, he didn't disengage. He told her his name, and he took her out for the night, and he fucked her, as if he wasn't thinking about Devereaux at all.</p><p>He was. He was always thinking about Devereaux. He couldn't stop.</p><p>But at least it didn't show where she could see it.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(He didn't expect to wake up alone. He didn't expect his gun to be gone. And he definitely didn't expect Devereaux, sitting at the table, drinking, holding that gun to Sarah's head.</p><p>Taunting him, scaring the shit out of her. Slicing her fucking femoral artery open, Jesus fucking Christ.</p><p>It was—</p><p>It was fucked up. It was fucked up, and it was terrifying, because David was fucking <em>gratified</em> by it.</p><p>He'd detoxed off Devereaux. He'd gone cold turkey, with Devereaux's retirement. He'd suffered his way through the withdrawal in silence, and he'd survived it.</p><p>And then he'd looked at Devereaux across the hood of that wrecked van, and he'd gotten the purest hit he'd had in years: Devereaux's eyes on him, the full weight of Devereaux's focus riveted to him utterly.</p><p>It shouldn't have felt <em>good</em>, learning that Devereaux would break into his apartment and nearly kill a woman just to fuck with his head, just to test him.</p><p>But jesus, it did.</p><p>It did.</p><p>Devereaux didn't—Devereaux didn't feel this. David knew that. Whatever it was that had him so goddamn hung up on Devereaux, he was alone in it, and he always would be.</p><p>But at least Devereaux was still paying attention. At least David was still taking up some kind of space in his head, somewhere.</p><p>Pitiful fucking scraps. But for David, that was enough.)</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>five.</strong>
</p><p>In the end, it was easier than it should have been.</p><p>The call for proof of life was coming. It had to be. Devereaux would be an idiot not to insist on it; and Devereaux was a lot of things, but he wasn't an idiot. Celia would be able to trace it, and then they'd know where Hanley had put Lucy. David just had to wait for it.</p><p>It came.</p><p>Devereaux gave Hanley a location. Hanley gave it to David.</p><p>David wondered distantly, sprinting up the stairs with Jones at his heels, whether it was a fake location or not. Whether he'd found that soft underbelly after all, the one person Devereaux wouldn't sacrifice for anything—the relationship Devereaux had spent all that time warning David not to form, because he knew, had to have known, exactly how goddamn dangerous it was. Or—</p><p>What did it even mean, if it was fake after all? That Devereaux cared about Mira Filipova, about abstractions of justice, or just about not letting Hanley force his hand, more than he cared about his daughter?</p><p>Or that he was willing to bet her life on the understanding that David Mason was an asshole and a fuckup and a killer, but—but, maybe, still human, somewhere underneath?</p><p>He'd saved Sarah. Devereaux couldn't have missed that.</p><p>Had that finally counted for something? All that time he'd spent driving himself harder and harder, forging himself into the weapon he was supposed to be; and the thing Devereaux had wanted from him all along was some everyday irrational failure, a show of the exact weakness Devereaux had constantly been telling him to avoid.</p><p>Well, David had everyday irrational failure, weakness, in spades. Devereaux just didn't know about it.</p><p>It didn't matter whether the location was real or not. That wasn't where he was going.</p><p>He got the message from Celia. He drove into a wall, left Jones there and ran. He was still fucked up, raw and bruised and aching where Devereaux had beaten him, half-strangled him, slammed him into metal pipes. The car crash didn't help.</p><p>But he could barely feel it. He'd thrown himself over the edge, now; he was letting this thing with Devereaux eat him whole, and it should have felt like surrender, but instead he felt fucking invincible. He had no idea how he was going to explain what he was about to do, who would call him to account for it, whether what they had on Hanley was enough to put him away or whether it was David who was going on the chopping block for this. But he didn't—he didn't care. He was doing this for Devereaux, and that meant it was already worth it to him.</p><p>Jesus, he'd lost it.</p><p>He broke legs, jaws, heads. He shot anyone in his way, and then he threw himself through the door—moving target, and not at the height anyone in the room was going to be expecting—and used up the rest of his clip on one guy, because he was about to land on his shoulder on the floor and there was no way he could afford to let that agent get up again, no way he'd make it back to his feet first.</p><p>Lucy was okay. And David took her out of there, and brought her to Devereaux.</p><p>Devereaux looked at him, and said quietly, "Thank you."</p><p>And David kept his gun pointed at Hanley, and very, very carefully didn't fall on his fucking knees.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(He delivered Hanley to the Agency at gunpoint. And then he left.</p><p>When he got back to his apartment, Devereaux was there.</p><p>David didn't have any room left to be surprised. Not after today.</p><p>"Filipova?" he said.</p><p>"She's okay," Devereaux said. "She's in a safe place."</p><p>"Lucy," David said next.</p><p>"She's okay, too," Devereaux said.</p><p>David looked at him. After all this time, the strain, the ache, the endless fucking agony, now that they were standing here on the same side again, he felt almost calm. He was still—he was—he hadn't let go. The thing that had always drawn him so relentlessly toward Devereaux was still there.</p><p>He'd accepted it. Maybe that was the difference. He'd accepted it, and he'd killed half a dozen men for Devereaux, because he'd decided it was worth it. He wasn't fighting it anymore.</p><p>"Thank you," Devereaux said again, after a moment. "Mason—you did good."</p><p>David flinched.</p><p>He shouldn't have, but fuck, he was tired. His head ached.</p><p>Devereaux was watching him. "So you were listening."</p><p>
  <i>You should be proud. He did good, didn't he?</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Yeah. The boy did good.</i>
</p><p>"Hanley waved me in," David said. "Yeah, I was listening."</p><p>"You brought Lucy in for him."</p><p>David closed his eyes. "I brought Lucy in for him."</p><p>"And then you changed your mind."</p><p>"I'd already changed it," David said.</p><p>He kept his eyes shut. He could feel the way Devereaux went still anyway.</p><p>"The video you gave me. I watched it. If I hadn't gone for Lucy, he'd have sent somebody else. I knew he'd have to give you something. I knew Celia could trace it. We were going to be able to stop him. But only if he still thought he was getting what he wanted, right up until he wasn't."</p><p>He stopped, and wet his lips, and made himself look at Devereaux again. And then he smiled, just a little.</p><p>"Maybe not the most airtight plan in the world. But then I lack discipline. I'm impetuous. Says so right in my file."</p><p>"Yes," Devereaux agreed, almost soft. "It does."</p><p>David turned around, fumbled the fridge open and drew a beer out of it. When he turned back again, Devereaux was already gone.</p><p>So that was that, David thought, and pressed the cold beer bottle to his cheekbone where Devereaux had split the skin over it. That was that, and Devereaux still didn't know anything he shouldn't know, and that was for the best.)</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>and one.</strong>
</p><p>No one was coming for him.</p><p>David knew that. He'd known it the second he'd gotten the mission brief, the second he'd started looking through the file.</p><p>He wasn't supposed to come back from this one. He hadn't needed to ask why. Hanley was gone, and the company line was that he deserved to be; but that didn't mean anybody upstairs had been particularly happy with the idea that David would turn an op inside out and hand an asset over to a target, just because he'd decided he was going to. None of them had gone to bat for Hanley, rats from a sinking ship. But if they decided someday they wanted to run an op off the books to make the world work the way they thought it should, they didn't want David screwing them out of pulling it off.</p><p>The mission was over. He'd shot the guy he was supposed to shoot. But his odds of making it to the extraction point once he'd done it had been about a hundred to one if you were generous, and David didn't have a lot of generosity left in him these days.</p><p>He'd been caught. He'd been taken. No one was coming for him.</p><p>But they might have, if they'd realized he was going to get shot up with whatever the hell this was.</p><p>Ten minutes after the first shot, he already couldn't stop talking. He was trying everything he could think of, focusing in on the little details, making the answer to every question about twenty times as long as it needed to be. But they were going to get something useful out of him sooner or later, and they weren't incompetent. They'd searched him thoroughly while he was out, tied him down. He couldn't even kill himself to make it stop.</p><p>He talked about that, too. He talked about everything. He talked about what he thought, what he could see, what he could hear. He talked about what he'd decided their questions might mean, what he thought they might be digging for. He talked about how much he was talking. And he talked about how he felt.</p><p>How he felt physically. The cool rush of the drug under his skin, every time they shot him up afresh. The ache in his throat, how thirsty he was; how much he actually liked it, the way the restraints kept him anchored, pinned.</p><p>But he talked about Devereaux, too.</p><p>They didn't want to know about Devereaux. They didn't care at all. But boy, did David have a lot to say. It made it easier, that he was so—that he'd bottled it up for so long. The drug made him want to answer their questions. It made him want to explain everything to them. But he <em>already</em> wanted to let out every single thought he'd ever had in his life about Devereaux.</p><p>He talked about Devereaux until he was hoarse.</p><p>But he wasn't expecting Devereaux to actually show up.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The first he knew about it was the explosion.</p><p>The explosion, and then the gunfire.</p><p>He talked about it, obviously. But they weren't listening anymore. They were shouting to each other, frantic, suddenly in motion. One of them was told to clean up, and about ten seconds later David had a gun to his head.</p><p>But the guy who was holding it died before he could pull the trigger. And inside of a minute, the only person left alive in the room besides David was Devereaux.</p><p>David looked up at him, and laughed. Speak of the devil, he thought—and probably said, because he couldn't really tell the difference anymore.</p><p>"Mason," Devereaux said, level, steady, reaching down to examine the restraints closed around David's wrists. "Mason, can you hear me?"</p><p>"God, of course it's you," David listened to himself say, and then he laughed again. His eyes were hot and prickling. He was—he didn't want Devereaux to undo the restraints, suddenly. It felt safer to be in them.</p><p>He said that, too. Devereaux looked at him silently, and then undid them anyway, because Devereaux had never given half a shit what David wanted and wasn't about to start now.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Devereaux got him out.</p><p>Devereaux got him out, and Devereaux had a safehouse not too far away, because of course he did. Devereaux was prepared for everything.</p><p>Everything except, maybe, the fact that David still couldn't stop talking.</p><p>He tried to. He was desperate to. His throat was so sore already that the words were coming out rasped, scraping.</p><p>But they were still coming out.</p><p>If anything, maybe he should've been impressed it took as long as it did. They made it there, even as slow as Devereaux had been driving: steady, casual, like someone who had nowhere in particular to be. They made it there, and Devereaux half-carried David in, sat him down—looked him over, quick, for wounds that needed treatment, but there was nothing wrong with him except where he'd hurt himself on the restraints, trying to give himself something to talk about. That, and where the needles had gone in.</p><p>Devereaux was up again, checking the doors and windows, closing the blinds one at a time. </p><p>And it was only then that David finally heard, "I think about that night all the fucking time," claw its way out of his own mouth.</p><p>Devereaux looked at him. And jesus, it was just as good as it had ever been, the pure sweet hit of Devereaux's attention, all David's for as long as David could manage to hold it, keep it.</p><p>"That night you screwed me," David listened to himself say, and then laughed, an unsteady huff of breath through his nose. "Literally, not figuratively. Remember that?"</p><p>"I remember," Devereaux said, level.</p><p>"Jesus, no, don't <em>answer</em>," David said. "If you ever gave a shit about me for even a second, Devereaux, gag me. Gag me. Please. This shit they gave me, I can't stop. I can't stop talking. And I don't want to tell you—"</p><p>Fuck. Here it was.</p><p>David wasn't chained down anymore. He reached up and put his hands over his mouth, shoved his fingers between his teeth, trying to change the shape of the sounds enough that Devereaux wouldn't be able to pick them out. Devereaux was coming toward him, and David wondered dimly whether it was to gag him like he'd asked, or to pull his hands out of his mouth and listen.</p><p>He knew he wasn't going to get to find out. Because he said it anyway, around the weight of his own fingers, muffled by his scraped-up stinging knuckles: "I don't want to tell you I'm gone for you. I don't want to tell you I always have been."</p><p>The barest line drew itself between Devereaux's brows.</p><p>And abruptly, David was done. He was just done. He was fucked, and he knew it; seven fucking years he'd managed to keep whatever this was to himself, shoved down, locked away, painted over. But it was out, it was finally getting out, and it was like being pushed out of a plane. All there was left to do was fall, and wait to see where you were going to hit the ground, whether it was going to kill you or not.</p><p>He lay there and let his aching hands fall. God, he was so fucking tired. He hurt all over; his eyes were hot and stinging; he couldn't think, and there was no one to shoot, and that was all he'd ever been good at.</p><p>He said that part, too, barely over a whisper. It fell out. He couldn't stop it and he didn't try.</p><p>"Mason," Devereaux said, almost gently.</p><p>"I want you more than anything," David said grimly. "I always have. Since the second we met, the second I saw you—I wanted you to look at me. I've always wanted you to look at me. I was so fucking happy when you fucked me. Did you know that? You were right. I <em>was</em> gagging for it. I thought I'd won. I thought I had you." He felt his mouth twist, a parody of a smile, nothing funny about it. "Set me straight, didn't you?"</p><p>"David," Devereaux said, very low.</p><p>"The worst part was, I couldn't stop wanting you. Even after that. Even after—even after you'd retired, even after it had been years. I thought about you every single goddamn day. Every mission I went on without you, I pictured you there, what you'd say, what you'd do. That was how I got ready to go: I closed my eyes and imagined you there next to me, snapping your fingers in my face. <i>You ready?</i> And in my head I'd tell you yes, and then I was."</p><p>Devereaux had stopped about half a step from the edge of the couch where David was lying. He was just standing there, hands at his sides. But he hadn't taken his eyes off David, not once.</p><p>"Fuck," David said. "Oh, fuck. I didn't want to say this. I didn't want you to know. It fucking killed me when you wouldn't fuck me again, when you didn't even want to. I tried so goddamn hard to hate you, but it never worked. I should've shot you a dozen times, but I couldn't. Every time I fucked someone, I thought about fucking you instead. I couldn't let go. I'm never going to be able to let go. It's always going to be you."</p><p>By the time it was out, he was gritting the words through his teeth; it felt like it took every muscle in his body to say them, but it would have been so much harder not to. When he was done, he was gasping, throat working, like they'd used up all the air he had in him.</p><p>He let his eyes fall shut.</p><p>Something touched his face. Warm, steady. Devereaux's hand.</p><p>"I'm going to go into the other room, David," Devereaux said quietly. "They aren't going to find you here, and if they do I'll kill them. Try to sleep."</p><p>David choked on a laugh, half-hysterical, and squeezed his eyes shut tighter. Jesus. Fucking Devereaux.</p><p>He couldn't <em>sleep</em>. Not after that. Except he was so fucking tired—except this couch was soft, and it was warm in here, and he was safe, Devereaux had said so. He was already halfway down; maybe he was going to be able to follow orders this once after all, he thought, and it was the last thing he thought before he was under.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He woke up.</p><p>Devereaux was there. If Devereaux had had to kill anyone while David was sleeping, David couldn't tell. It was bright, outside the blinds. Late morning, or maybe midday. David tried to remember which direction this room faced, where the sun would have to be, and couldn't.</p><p>God, his head ached.</p><p>"Mason," Devereaux said.</p><p>David swallowed, and didn't look at him. "You got me out."</p><p>"Yes," Devereaux said.</p><p>"Why?" David said, hoarse. "Why?"</p><p>Devereaux looked at him, and—and touched his face again, just like before, just like when he'd fallen asleep. "Because I couldn't do otherwise," he said, level, and then he tilted David's chin up and leaned down and kissed him.</p><p>David lay there, stunned, feeling it happen.</p><p>Devereaux let him go, when it was over. "You should eat something," he said.</p><p>"Later," David heard himself say, staring at Devereaux.</p><p>He touched Devereaux. Devereaux let him. He drew Devereaux down, and Devereaux let him do that, too.</p><p>Devereaux had to know it was only going to make this worse. This thing had clung on inside David for years without Devereaux giving it anything except one fuck and then a slap in the face. He had to know that feeding it this—safety, and Devereaux's couch, Devereaux's mouth and hands—wasn't exactly going to help David kill it. Which meant—</p><p>Which meant, maybe, he was trying to make sure David couldn't.</p><p>"Devereaux," David said unsteadily.</p><p>Devereaux looked at him. "I thought it was the best way to handle it," he said. "You wanted to prove you could compromise my judgment. I'd show you that you couldn't. Then you'd stop." He paused, and something in his eyes changed. "I didn't know, David."</p><p>David swallowed, and shut his eyes.</p><p>"You'd have been better off with a dog," Devereaux murmured after a moment, bland, wry.</p><p>"I didn't feel the need for a relationship," David told him. "I already had one."</p><p>He reached up blindly, eyes still closed, for Devereaux's face. And Devereaux moved into his hands; and David kissed him again, and Devereaux didn't stop him.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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